Master Negative Keyword List for Amazon Advertising - Cut Wasted Ad Spend Instantly

Published on November 18, 2025

About this video

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In this video, I explain how to create and use a master negative keyword list for your Amazon advertising campaigns. This strategy helps you cut wasted ad spend instantly by eliminating irrelevant traffic before it even happens.

A master negative keyword list is a collection of keywords that you don't want your Amazon ads to show up for. These keywords fall into several main categories including non-commercial intent keywords like "do it yourself" or "is it a kit", wrong product types, and wrong materials. For example, if you're selling dog products, you want to exclude everything related to cats and horses. If you're selling plastic products, you don't want to appear on searches for wooden, metal, silver, or gold variations.

The process is simple - you can create your list using notepad or any word processing app. Make sure your team follows a standard operating procedure to add the negative master keyword list to every campaign. Store it in the cloud using Google Sheets where team members can update it collaboratively. You can separate different categories into different sheets for better organization.

By implementing this Amazon PPC strategy, you'll end up with tens or even hundreds of negative keywords that will instantly save money and increase your margin and profit on Amazon. This Amazon advertising technique is essential for Amazon PPC optimization and helps improve your overall Amazon ads performance.

Contents: 00:00 Introduction to Master Negative Keyword Lists 00:27 Why You Need Negative Keywords for Amazon Ads 01:01 Categories of Negative Keywords to Exclude 01:47 Wrong Product Type Examples 02:17 Wrong Material Examples 02:39 How to Create Your Master List 03:03 Team Implementation and Organization

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Transcript

Hi and welcome to another video. Today I will talk about negative keywords. More precisely, master negative keyword list. What it is and why you absolutely need it. So we all want to cut wasted ad spend like instantly if possible. So you actually can do that especially if you already have someone who manages your ad account on Amazon or if you do it you already know which keywords simply do not work for your account. So those can be ranging from like non-commercial or even research intent like do do it yourself or is it a kit or not and if it even makes sense for your product. So, you want to uh eliminate irrelevant traffic before it even happens. You know, if you're selling bike parts, you don't want to advertise on cars, you know, and that sort of stuff. So, some some of the main categories that we can maybe um group together different negative keywords could be like, as I said, non-commercial, it could be wrong product type, wrong material. For example, wrong product type could could simply be something that it's just not it. You know, for example, if you're selling a product for dogs, you want to exclude everything related to cats, you know, if that's your thing, you know, depending on the context. But you get the idea. So, you don't want to advertise products. Sorry, you don't want to appear on search searches that when somebody is buying something for horses or cats, you're selling a dog products or if it's a different material. If you're selling only plastic whatever product you don't want to be appearing on wooden on or metal or silver or gold you know or if you only selling silver you don't want to be appearing on gold if that makes sense from the data point of view and that's something that you want to automatically exclude it. So it's it's really easy to create on. So you can use Notepad or any other uh word processing app and just put them all together and every single time make sure that your team follows the SOP to add that negative master keyword list and have it somewhere in on the cloud where every team member is going to update it. you know, you can separate it by sheets um inside the Google Sheets and then you can, you know, different team members can add to it and then you will end up having like uh tens and and if not hundreds of keywords that will instantly save money and increase your margin and profit on Amazon. Thank you for watching. Let me know how you manage these kind of uh issues and see you tomorrow in the next video. Byebye.

Frequently asked questions

What is a master negative keyword list for Amazon PPC and why do you need one?

A master negative keyword list is a shared, reusable collection of terms you never want your ads to appear for, organized by category and applied to every campaign from the start. Instead of discovering wasted spend after the fact through search term reports, you eliminate irrelevant traffic before it happens. Over time the list can grow to tens or hundreds of terms, and each one added saves budget that would otherwise go to clicks with no chance of converting.

What categories of keywords should go into a master negative list?

The main categories are non-commercial or research intent terms (such as "do it yourself" or "is it a kit"), wrong product types (for example, cat-related searches if you sell dog products), and wrong materials (such as wooden or metal if you only sell plastic items). These are terms where the searcher is clearly not looking for what you sell, and excluding them proactively protects your budget across all campaigns without waiting for data to confirm the waste.

How should a team manage and maintain a master negative keyword list?

Store the list in a shared document such as Google Sheets, organized by category in separate tabs so team members can add to it collaboratively. Create a standard operating procedure that requires the list to be applied to every new campaign at launch. As your account matures and new irrelevant search terms surface, team members update the shared list so those exclusions benefit all future campaigns automatically.